Week 9

Last week during my field experience we were helping the kids write personal narratives. Each student was given small pieces of paper which started with a sentence "When I was 2 I...", "When I was 3 I..." and so on, and so on. It was my job to revise their finished sentences. I LOVED reading each and every one. Here is a memorable one...

"When I was 3 I like to put one end of my sock in my mouth and play tug-a-war with my granddad."

These kids never fail to make me laugh! I really enjoyed revising their sentences and helping them write their personal narratives. Also during the day, we had a code red drill. It was really hard to get a class of 1st graders to squeeze together in a small corner and have all of them be quiet. I could see how just a short drill like this could cause stress and tension among the classroom. To help them quiet down, my cooperating teacher read from a Ramona chapter book they have been reading together in their spare time.

Overall, I had a good day at my field experience. I am really learning more and more about the kids in the classroom through their writing. I wish I had more time to get to know them!

Week 8

I loved class this week! Even though I couldn't really relate any of the invitations to my topic, I enjoyed the different fun ideas to help foster good writing. I started out at the table with different objects. I chose to write a poem about a shell and it's different shapes and sizes. Then, I moved on to the table with pictures. I found myself writing more than I thought I could. I chose a beautiful picture of a valley with rolling hills, trees, and a sky with infinite colors. I imagined what it would sound like, feel like, and look like if I was there. I came out with a really good composition. Then I moved on to the found poem table where I made a poem about flowers blooming in the spring.

Also in class this week, we did a midterm evaluation of our notebooks. It was helpful to see which genres I chose to write the most. I would like to try writing more kids quotations. I always try to remember to put the ones I remember in my notebook but many times I forget. From my peer conferencing notes, I've noticed that I am a very informal writer. I never really think about type of genre I want to write about, I just write which sometimes makes my entries a little bland and repetitive. By the end of the semester I hope to mix it up a little more with more genres.

Week 7

In class today, we worked on our Multigenre research papers. After writing our drafts for homework, we were able to have a peer conference with another person. Jenn and I teamed up and read our papers to each other. We were both able to give each other good suggestions. Afterward, Linda gave us newspapers to look through and asked us to find some genres. WOW! I haven't even thought about all of the possible genres in a newspaper. Basically, no genre is left out! There were even some genres that I have never even thought about before. Doing this activity realllly helped me understand what kinds of genres we could use for our papers. This could be a really great activity that I could use in my classroom as a future teacher. After that, we were asked to pick a genre that talked about from the newspaper and create one with our partner. Abby and I worked together on this because our papers both were on sports. Naturally, we wrote a sports article together. After today, I am really excited about getting started on my multigenre paper and to make use of the resources we were provided. I really like www.prezi.com. It looked like a really cool tool to use for this type of project. Overall, after this class I'm starting to feel pretty confident in my multigenre research paper.

Week 6: Multigenre Research Paper

This week in class we focused on our Multigenre research paper. I wasn't sure about what I wanted to do at first, but yesterday's class really helped. I decided to do my multi-genre research paper on Steve Prefontaine, a famous athlete of the 1970's. He is someone I have known about and idolized as a high school athlete but I would like to learn more about his life. During class, we did an exercise with writing questions on post-it notes. We then divided the post-its into the categories "Need to Know", "Nice to Know", and "Essential." These really helped me with starting my rough draft paper since I already knew what I had to research. While researching Prefontaine, I was able to focus on coming up with genre ideas for my project.

Week 5: Unit of Study

During this weeks class, we discussed non-fiction books. I thought it was really cool to break up Cynthia Rylant's book Whales and read it in random order. After doing that, we took a look at non-fiction books which were placed on out tables in front of us. We were to come up with different characteristics of non-fiction books. At first, I mentioned the idea of non-fiction books not having a beginning, middle or end. Quickly someone in class corrected me and said that stories such as Ruby Bridges do have an order. Also, I learned that books such as The Magic School Bus are considered non-fiction.

My favorite part of class was presenting out Unit of Study to a small group. I did mine on poetry. I went to the library and found a book by Shel Silversteen called Where the Sidewalk Ends. I was so excited! I could remember this book as a favorite from elementary school. While I was writing my Unit of Study, I found my self distracted by the urge to read more from Shel's book. I found an all-time favorite poem Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out and I insisted on reading it to my roommates. They loved it! For my lesson, I printed out a poem for each person and had them highlight all of the strong verbs. The purpose was so they could see how the author tries to help the reader visualize the poem. For instance, an author wouldn't say, "She went to class." It would be better to say "She sprinted to class!" I found myself so excited about this lesson plan when I was presenting to my group that I was stumbling over my words and stuttering... So embarrassing, but fun nonetheless.